Review: Award Winning British Adverts

It’s time once again for Cincinnati World Cinema to bring you the latest edition of the British Arrow Award winning commercials. That’s right…commercials. These little mini-movies, created for television and cinema use in the UK offer up more creativity and imagination than what we usually get on this side of the pond. After enduring yet another seemingly endless onslaught of droning prescription medicine plugs and snarky, repulsive political commercials, it’s a real treat to actually enjoy watching spots that can be funny, whimsical, or even frightening without insulting your intelligence.

Here are a couple of highlights from the new program: beautifully animated robotic hummingbirds sip nectar from gas pumps and flit gracefully through the highways in the sky, which turns out to be a plug for one of the new Audis. You may have seen commercials here in which a person does something completely silly because he or she doesn’t have the right glasses. The British version of this concept is laugh-out-loud funny and outrageous, and one of the highlights in this edition. The grand prizewinner, while maybe a tad on the schmaltzy side, certainly ranks high in charm and no doubt got extra points for being such a feel good concept. On the flip side of that coin, there’s a bone-chilling PSA about the use of condoms that drives home the point more succinctly than any number of conversations with mum and dad about safe sex.

Of course, there are also those pesky British adverts that are so local they don’t travel well. For example, there’s a noodle-in-a-cup product that always uses indecipherable concepts to pitch their product, and I’m sure you need to be from there in order to get it. But a good thing about these programs is that, if you don’t like the commercial you are currently watching, just hang in there. There’s going to be something completely different coming along in another sixty seconds.

You can see the British Arrow Awards today at one of two showings: 4:00 pm and 7:30 pm in Covington’s Carnegie Arts Center. In addition to this always-fun cinematic evening, there will be an adjunct exhibit in the Carnegie Gallery from AAF Cincinnati, with a “best of” program for local commercial producers at 6:30 pm Sunday before the final screening. You’ll have an opportunity to meet and talk with these local creatives.

And if all this sounds intriguing: wait… there’s more! Cincinnati World Cinema offers a social hour and cash bar before each screening, with tasty a la carte hors d’ouerves from Europa Bistro between screenings.

So take yourself out of the rut of the run of the mill movies and feast your eyes on something fresh. Go to Cincinnati World Cinema for all the information about today’s showings.